Peripheral nerve damage is a serious and rising concern, and affects up to 1% of the US population by age 70. Typical causes include traumatic injury, vehicular accidents, sports injuries, wartime injuries and repetitive stress. Consequences of peripheral nerve damage include loss of mobility, motor function and sensation, and severe pain, among others.
In many cases, nerve damage manifests itself as a severed nerve, between a proximal end, which is close to the spinal cord, and which is “live”, separated from a distal end, which is distant from the spinal cord, and degenerating. Gaps may exist of various sizes, and a large gap may be one that is over 10 mm. If contact between the proximal and distal ends of the nerve can be achieved, nerve axons can regrow, resulting in recovery of the nerve.
Every year, approximately 50,000 nerve repair procedures are performed in the United States. Nevertheless, few if any effective strategies exist to repair large gaps. The most common technique is to graft a portion of a nerve from a cadaver or a nerve fragment from elsewhere in the patient's body into the space between the detached nerve ends. These solutions are not always successful, and have limitations. Another concept that has been proposed is to lengthen the nerve, bringing proximal and distal ends closer together. In one exemplary technique, a balloon is used whose expansion extends a nerve, but such techniques “bow” the nerve nonlinearly, with undesired results. In another technique, a large device is employed to secure nerve ends. This device is disadvantageous though, as the patient is rendered essentially immobile.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.